I remember the paint-splattered radio spluttering Popcornand strip-lighting flickering, vinyl seats sticky and warmand fat swollen chips and red sauce and vinegar vapoursand vibrations of lemonade bubbling through waxed paper straws.I remember my mother muttering damn little madamand my sister was silent, her lips knotted up in a sulkand her stiff arms were hugging her chest. I realised that momentwhy the big girls at school called her Little Miss Tits in a Vest.I was scratching the tissue-thin skin on my back, it was peeling,and the calomine lotion was powder and cracking like chalk.I was counting the tin tops of cars as they passed by the windowwith their wing mirrors flashing back sparks like electrical shocks.There were snagged plastic bags, like burst balloons,hanging limp on the fence wire. There was stillness.Then shrillness, I hate you, a door being slammed.I remember the red sauce bottle. It wobbled on the tableand I grabbed it, I missed it, it toppled and smashed on the floor.

H L Foster, the University of Strathclyde. She says: "I studied Drama and English in London and took up a short-lived career in advertising before moving to Edinburgh to work in the heritage sector. A brief interlude saw me return to my native East Midlands to teach in secondary education. I had a short story published in Mslexia last year and won a place to read my work at Edinburgh City of Literature Trust’s ‘Story Shop’ at the Edinburgh Book Festival. I turn to the past and people’s memories of it for inspiration for my writing. My current work examines the relationship between oral history and social historical fiction."